Day 3 Yellowstone to Cody WY

Last night we ate dinner at Buckaroo Bills. The guy that onwed it used to be a cop in LA and got involved in the rodney King thing. So he quit and started this place. The food was pretty good.

Here is a shot of the cabin we stayed in last night.  Slept like a log (cabin).

This was on the roof of one of the other cabins.

We left West Yellowstone and headed into the park.  There was frost on my bike this morning.  I put all my clothes on and a face mask.

I ran across this sign.  I thought it belonged in this blog.

We are just starting on the Grand Loop.  There was enough scenery to make you sick.

This is the parking area by the picture above.  We were still getting used to the cold morning at this point.

This was on the far end of the Grand Loop, just before we turned off to go up to Beartooth pass.  It was a good place to take a break.

This is the Mamoth Hot Springs from a bit of a distance.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

Having some coffee and getting warmed up (again) at the Hotel at Mamoth Hot Springs.

Here are some Bison.  We saw hundreds of them today.  Some just feet away.

We gassed up at Cookle City.  That is just outside of the park's North East gate.

We cut over and headed to Beartooth Pass.  This sign was along the way (apparently we went further than I realized).

There was a waterfall along the way to the top of the pass.  It looked WAAYYYYY better in person than on this picture (its hard to take your own picture).

This is one view from Beartooth Pass.  Its 10,947 feet.  Its above the tree line and its a bit hard to breathe up there.  This pass in on the Chief Joseph Scenic By-way and has a lot of switchbacks.  Its a fun ride!  This area is known for severe winds, thunderstorms and snow in the summer. But, we had none of that today.

We passed by lots of scenic mountains today.

Here is some more....

We ate lunch at the Red Box Car Diner.  They were busy and this is the slowest place on earth to get waited on.  I feared I would have a birthday before my next hamburger.

Finally, we made it to Cody and stayed in a NEW HOTEL.  Tomorrow we will go and see the Buffalo Bill Museum (its full of guns)

We ate dinner at Irma's.  The place used to be a hotel owned by Buffalo Bill.  It still is a hotel and restaurant.  They feature ALL YOU CAN EAT PRIME RIB.  How can you beat that?

Mel and I made quick work of the buffet.

This place is decorated just like you'd think it would be.

They even have nightly gun fights in the streets (except tonight).  I asked the clerk why not tonight?  He answered: "Because the fighters got drunk."   Yep, we're in the West.

Today was a nice easy day, but we didn't make many miles.  Tomorrow will be like this one, except that we will not be in the mountains.

Day 2 August 3rd

Today we started off at about 8AM after a crappy breakfast at the motel.  We went down the road about an hour before coming to Phillipsburg.  It’s a quaint little place.

There is a somewhat famous candy store there that Jerry knew about so we stopped in.

 

They have a real old candy wrapping machine that is fun to watch.  It puts pieces of taffy into a wrapper then spins the ends closed and dropped them into a bucket.

 

The store looks like an antique.  And it’s filled with them also.

We bumped into Darrel Hugues and Jim Jensen there along with a friend of theirs.  They are also on the way to Sturgis.   Small world. 

 

We went across the street to a coffee shop….

and met some ladies.  They didn’t have much to say. 

I saw this book on the book shelves there and it reminded me of Mile Rowbottom  (for some odd reason).

We headed up into the hills and took in the scenery.  Today was pretty easy, and is sprinkled on us a bit, but it was a hellofa lot of fun up there.  Here are a couple shots of scenery.

Of course, we have to have some road construction every day.

We stopped at Yellowstone Harley (required) and had lunch in a town called Bellegrade, Mt.  I got myself some bison jerky (just for the heck of it).

 

Smokey reminded us that fire danger is high today.  By the way, the "Teddy" bear was created after Theodore Roosevelt saved a bear cub in 1902. "Smokey" was a spin off, who apeared later in 1944. 

We got into West Yellowstone early and had some time to goof off or work on blogs (same thing).

We stayed at a place called the “Hibernation Station.”  It’s a bunch of small cabins.  This is inside the Park, so its not too fancy.  The government run internet connection is in one of the other buildings - off by itself - about 20 years behind the times (much like our health care is going to be).

So today was a nice sort of a ride.  Not a hurried pace, not much rain, only a few sons-a-bitches….  All in all, a pretty good day for me.

Tomorrow we ride through the park a couple of times, climb over Beartooth Pass, then back down into the park and into Cody Wyoming.  We may get wet up in the pass.  Its 10,947 ft high.

August 2nd, 2012

Well,  They changed the way this  blog works, so I have loaded all of these pictures backwards (deal with it).

This is where we spend night 1 in Missoula, MT

Here is a shot of the sign up at the summit of LoLo Pass (just like it says).  Lewis and Clark passed this way in 1805, but as I remember, the roads are much better now.  A few slow pokes here and there. Just enough to make us drag along......

We entered Montana at the top of Lolo Pass and lost one hour. It was just starting to get dark when we were up here.

We took a butt break on the way up to the top of pass and put our jackets on.  This ride is scenic as heck.  I had to soak my eye balls at the end  of the day.

We got stuck behind some guys sweeping the roadway with three big machines.  There was enough dust for everyone.  No need to hog any of it. They really clipped along... at 10 mph. I got that crap in my eyes even with my goggles on.

This is what every biker wants to see!

We got into Idaho at Lewiston.  Actually I took this picture at the other end of the state because I didn't take time to stop at the Washington/Idaho border (didn't want to stop). So we were actually just leaving the Pacific Time Zone (time warp- I'm used to it).

We took our first break at Ellinsburg. Just a few minutes to recycle our morning coffee.

We got into a bit of fog on the way up to Snoqualomie Pass.  I thought it may rain a little , but it didn't.

I basically strong-armed some woman into taking our picture at the park and ride before we took off this morning.  I think I scared her a bit as she didn't want to get out of her car at first. But after a bit she figured we were harmless (mostly). I can't say much about her photographic skills.

Here is a shot of Dennis and his trusty steed.  (It looks like he may have gas??)

Jerry has a new bike (its nice!).

This is Mel, my roommate for the week. He has an old Police bike (2010)

I saved the best picture for last! (look at that old guy!)

Maybe tomorrow I will get the pictures in the right order.  But I am sure you can tell we had a fun but a very long day. 

We managed to get trough the day without any major mishaps.  Dennis had a slamm glitch in his computer controlled throttle, but Jewels reset it somehow and it is fine now.  Tomorrow we head for West Yellowetone, just outside of Jellystone Park. Saturday we will take a tour through the park and look for Yogi and Boo boo.

Tomorrow starts at 6AM .  Its nearly midnight here now.  Time to "crash."

April 28th 2012

Our Spring Opener was attended by Fred, Marv, my neighbor Kevin and me.  We road 288 miles (I did anyway) from my house and  back.  Most of the road was dry except out at the coast.

Me

All in all, we had a pretty good time. We took the back roads through Roy, KcKenna, Yelm, Rainier, Tenino, Pe-Ell. Le Bam, and ate lunch in Raymond.

Marv - he put together todays ride.

Posing at Westport.  It was windy there. (When isn't it windy there?)